Couples who live together before marriage (and even moreso before engagement) divorce more often than those who don’t. This result is consistent enough for researchers to have named it the “cohabitation effect (Jay, 2012).”

Originally thought to occur because cohabitors are less conventional and more open to divorce, researchers now believe that the effect may be, in part, because of risks inherent in cohabiting. It’s easy to “slide in,” they argue, but harder to “slide out” of living together (Jay, 2012).

It’s cheaper, for one, to share a place than to both get our own places. For another, we might not hold our partners to the same high standards we would a potential spouse before agreeing to engagement. The convenience may be such that the decision requires no big conversation about the future.

I’ve personally had two experiences of “sliding in” to living together. The first was in college, when my boyfriend spent nearly every night in my dorm room. When my friends and I were looking for another roomate for our townhouse, he was a logical choice because he would have been there all the time anyway. The year after college, we already had experience living together, and rents weren’t cheap in Boston; separate apartments were never a consideration. But we didn’t really get locked in. We broke up that year when the lease ended and we moved to separate places for grad school.

In my later 20s, things were different. I moved in with a boyfriend because of cost and convenience, and stayed with him for 4 years, in part because we lived in a home I owned. Without annual lease renewals or frequent moves, forced renegotiations were moot. In a stable living situation it was extra hard, and extra painful, to ask him to leave. So much so that after he did leave, he told everyone he was going through a divorce (though we had never been married). In this sense, the Times author was right. We did have a harder time sliding out than sliding in.

One problem I have with the piece, though, is that it seems to reduce the value and risk of living together before marriage to the likelihood of divorce. Serial cohabitors have the greatest risk of relationship dissolution, she points out, but my experience is that having this basis of comparison serves a few functions.

For one, now that I’m married I don’t have illusions about how perfect other partners could be. The grass is not greener, it’s just different. I’m absolutely positive that if I traded in my husband’s bad habits and quirks, I’d get a whole other set. I also have a deep sense that living with people is difficult, no matter what, and I’m pretty good at sorting out the problems that are linked to that fact and the problems that transcend it.

Even beyond serial cohabititation, there may be value in living with your partner before marriage. There are fewer of the inevitable surprises that come with marriage, and possibly less disappointment. I don’t really think living together prepared us for marriage, but I do think it cushioned us against some of the stress associated with such a major life change.

The Times piece does point out that, according to recent research, the cohabitation effect is decreasing. But she also praises the fact that, in a 2010 poll, more Americans than ever before indicated that they saw cohabititation as a step toward marriage (Pew Research Center, 2011). I’d argue that cohabiting may have value beyond that.

It seems good to have experience with taking risks on people before you take one as big as a lifetime commitment. Some really great relationships end, just like some really crappy relationships last a lifetime. The author is right, of course, that we should take these things seriously, and have conversations appropriate to the weight of the decision. But we might also be served to value growth and learning and process beyond outcome.

References

Copen, C. E., Daniels, K., Vespa, J. & Mosher, W. D. (2012). First marriages in the United States: Data from the 2006-2010 national survey of family growth. National Health Statistics Report, 49, March 22. Accessed at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf

I definitely think that living with someone before marriage is a good idea. I dated a guy once who I of course thought was a good person. Then we moved in and he could no longer hide his drug use from me- turns out that he was just "on best behavior" when we were hanging out together and then back to his real self at home.

At first I thought that maybe it wasn't such a big deal, but the longer we lived together the more crap came out-- he would steal gifts for me from stores to avoid having to buy them despite having a good job-- he would even steal from where I worked! He would blame all of his short comings on me somehow-- it was my fault he couldn't get up for work on time, etc. None of that had ever come to light before I moved in.

If I had gotten married (and we had talked about it, both sides of the family thought it could happen) without having lived together first I would have been in for a big, nasty surprise. I'm glad I tested the waters first.

This is a great blog post that really gets to the heart of something I'm currently facing. My significant other and I live together, though are about to graduate college and move to our respective houses with our parents to save up money.

He wants to get an apartment within a year after moving home, and I keep wrestling with explaining that I don't want to jump into anything - cohabiting, marriage (which we've discussed), and all the expenses of getting your own place - too soon.

After living together for the past year, I wonder if living apart will strengthen or weaken our relationship.

One might imagine that the sorts of people more able to resist the desire to cohabitation are the sorts of people who are more likely to resist the desire to divorce. In theory, a staunch catholic who does not believe in divorce will also not believe in living together before marriage. In this case, cohabitation does not cause divorce so much as not being catholic makes divorce and cohabitating simultaneously more likely. Cause/effect is a problem here.

I have not really had experience in this, but my boyfriend and I will be moving in in a couple of months. So this is really fascinating. I have already seen most of his bad habits because we don't hid things.

Honestly, I think it depends on the people. In Sweden, where I'm from, most couples live together and never get married. My cousins had lived together and had two kids who were several years old before they got married, and my parents were not married when they had me, and lived together before they got married. They are still together, 26 years later. My boyfriend and I were together five and a half years before moving in together, and we just saw it as the next step in our relationship. Neither of us feel ready to get married, but so far have lived together six months with no big issues. Our next step is to travel more together, and maybe after that get dogs (two cats is more than enough for now!).

Why then, if cohabiting only benefited one's finances and living conditions, would two people decide to get married? I'm sure you knew long before you and your ex-boyfriend broke up that marriage was out of the question. You made it sound mutual, that both you and your ex-boyfriend were benefiting from cohabiting for the purpose of a successful study life.

Given that this article doesn't explain why this phenomenon occurs, here's a possible explanation: Two people find, somehow, that signing that piece of paper taints what was once a natural living arrangement with no contracts. Perhaps something suddenly changes in the ideologies of married couples, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worst. A realisation that life will never be as good as it was when they were simply "living together in a loving relationship". There are deeper meanings to marriage than can be summed up in a single paragraph, which I believe, burrow deep into the sub-concious.

Also, please draw the line between "cohabiting" and "living together in a loving relationship". And after you do that, draw the line between "friends", "sex buddies" and "loving couples". Maybe then some light can be shone on WHY two people find themselves living under the same roof, and also the relationship you had with your ex.

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